The Door
by SenpaiKohaiDanna
Summary: Ever wonder why Kakashi, when he's not training his team, is always busy with some mission? It's not because he's the unfortunate reciver of a mess load of jobs. How about why he can read through books like tissue paper? It's not that he loves reading....
1. Father

It was a beautiful day today. The sun was shinning, the sky was blue, the grass was green, and the birds were chirping sweet songs as they flitted through air. Everyone was smiling and carrying on in their cheerful moods, and to top it all off, it was Kakashi's day off.

Too bad he loathed days like this with a passion

Why?

It gave him way to much time for peace, quiet, and solitude. Some time to think. And thinking (unless he was using it for a mission) was something he frenziedly tried to avoid.

At _all_ cost.

He busied himself with anything and everything he could think of.

Paperwork he hadn't filled out or finished during the week. Surprise training sessions with his team. Working on new concepts and ideas for jutsus or perfecting the ones he already knew. Taking all the missions he could. Reading "Icha Icha Paradise" or spending hours in the mirror, making sure his hair was perfectly styled. Hell! He even _went looking_ for **Gai** to play another round of Gai's ridiculous challenges as his self-proclaimed "eternal rival" just to keep himself occupied! But, it only lasted for so long, and soon, he was alone in his room, on his bed. _Thinking_.

God, how he despised this.

And it wasn't like he could choose what he thought about--- Oh God no. His thoughts had a mind of their own and it always drifted to one thing.

Himself.

And when he did, as he was doing now, his past broke free of its captivity and ran wild as one word drifted in and out of each flooding memory.

Useless.

If anyone had asked what Kakashi remembered most about his childhood, that would be it. How completely, unconditionally, irrevocably, and utterly useless he had been.

____________________________________________

He watched hopelessly as his father changed into something else. Something less than human, something sickly and vile. His father's health was the first thing to go. He preferred to stay cooped up in his bedroom, day after day, with the curtains closed and the door locked so there would be nothing but dark silence. Most likely a reflection of his soul. Kakashi witnessed him eating less and less as the days passed by, his mind slowly being sucked into a moonless night. There probably weren't even any stars to bring a little light to shine in the darkness. It was pitch black in his father's mind.

Everyday, Kakashi thought about walking into his fathers room, making him eat and dragging him outside to see the sun once again. To try and slap his dad awake from the endless nightmare. To ask-- no, to beg him to come out and return to the world outside of the bedroom. To _live_, to train with him. God, how he had missed training with his father. If he could just get him back.

But he couldn't.

There hadn't been many rules in the Hatake household. In fact there was only one: under no circumstances was Kakashi to enter his father's room when the door was closed.

Nothing changed with the fact that his father was dwindling away.

Kakashi had never really cared for the door to his fathers bedroom, it usually got in his way for one reason or another. Coming home to brag about his straight A's in class, but finding the door closed and having to wait later when he came out. Alone at school on parent's day because he never got to inform his father in time for him to make it (the door had been closed for four days straight). Or even just wanting to ask permission to go over to one of his friends house to play. Most importantly, to ask his own father, the infamous "White Fang" of Konoha, to train him. Kakashi wanted nothing more than to become just like his father, of whom he was so proud of. So people would know he could belong to no one else other than Sakumo Hatake. For Kakashi, the door was a symbol of all the things he could not do.

Thankfully, his father's bedroom door being closed was a rarity. Or it was.

He'd often have nightmares about the door when it was closed, but it hadn't been that often. At least, not until recently. Now, he had nightmares about it all of the time. Sometimes, the door would try too suck him in, or stop him from reaching his father when he called out for him. Other times, there was something in the room beyond that he desperately need to get to and never could. But, there was one nightmare above all others that scared him the most, and that still scared him to this day.

_Kakashi shot up from his bed, awake and alert. Thunder crashed outside his bedroom window. _Something_ had happen._

_He wasn't sure what it was, but it had happened, and it was _bad_. He could feel it, like a giant, metal chain wrapped tightly around his heart and pulling_-- yanking-- **hard**. _Pulling hard enough to drag his feet from his bed and yank him down the hall. With each yank, his heart would beat faster and his feet moved quicker, and soon both his feet and his heart were racing. The rain fell harder, beating a fast staccato rhythm against the roof._

_The Hatake house was a fair sized home. Nothing huge and fancy like what once was the Uchiha main house, but it was nothing to laugh at either. The white-haired boy maneuvered the halls easily without thought. Finding his way through the house was second nature to him. Instinct. Never in his life had these very same halls he was so accustom to seem like an increasingly very long, dark and confusing maze of paths of right and lefts. Erie, still, and perplexing. All instinct shot to _hell_._

_He ran through the twisting turns of the hallways as they gradually got more creepy and terrifying, not knowing where he was going, just following that yank at his heart. It wasn't until he slipped over something slick and fell on his face did he stop. As he moved to stand, he felt that a wetness had seeped through his clothes and now covered his hands as he pushed himself up. Whatever it was had not only completely covered his night shirt and pants, but as Kakashi crawled on his hands and knees, he felt it all over most of the floor as well. He also noticed that it got wetter and thicker the further up he went. He followed the wetness until it reached something very familiar. A door._

_Up until now, his heart had been doing its own little marathon. Now, it was trying its hardest to break through his rib cage. For this door (there was no doubt in his mind), lead to his father's room._

_ If you listened hard enough, you could possibly hear the silent click of Kakashi's brain as things came into place. The reason for why he had been plagued by all those earlier nightmares about this very door. Why he woke up suddenly in the middle of the night to run around the halls in a frantic panic. Why he had the strange notion that he knew exactly what it was he was covered in at the moment. As all these things clicked into place, his heart; once desperate for jailbreak, now came to an abrupt halt. _

_Hatake could not breath. _

_In the next few moments, he must had been on autopilot because Kakashi couldn't recall standing up. Kakashi didn't recollect ever reaching for the doorknob. Kakashi couldn't even bring to mind turning the knob and opening the door---all rules be_ _damned. _

_But he would never forget afterwards. _

_As if switching controls suddenly, Kakashi came off autopilot and back into his senses just in time for thunder to boom directly over head and lightning to flash just outside the window, illuminating a scene of which no four year-old should ever have to witness. _

_His father's cold, blood-soaked body. Unmoving. Dead. _

_Forever._

_The scream that ripped itself from the toddler's throat was so blood-curdling and grief-ridden that any self-proclaimed banshee would be put to shame. For surely, his fright and terror; woe and misery were unmatched._

_Kakashi screamed with all that he had in him and all that he did not. He screamed when people came to see what was wrong. He screamed when the people carried his father's corpse away. He screamed as all sorts of people tried to desperately and fruitlessly calm him down. He screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. He kept screaming until the point where he just couldn't anymore-- he couldn't even stifle out a mere grunt. He had screamed himself mute. _

_He had screamed so hard, for so long, hoping he would wake from this horrible nightmare, like he always did when it got too terrifying to deal with. He would scream and wake up, and his father would come rushing to his side, hug him and tell him that everything was alright. That everything was okay. That it was all just a bad dream._

_But, as he stood there, staring at the spot where his father's unmoving body had once lain, he realized that this was no nightmare. This was the horrendous and hideous truth._

_If it was possible, he would have screamed again._

His nightmares had definitely not gotten better after that night. So, with no where to turn, what with being the sole Hatake heir and the rest of the village avoiding him, Kakashi submerged himself into his training. To be a ninja. Following all the rules accordingly, learning from his father's mistake, and taking one sole ninja rule to heart. One that helped eased his pain for years. The number one rule: A ninja must never show emotion.

He swore he never would again.

He also swore he would never be as useless as he had been.

Nine years later, he broke both his promises.


	2. Dobe

He lay on his bed, anxiously attempting to drift into the sleep that his memories were successfully keeping him from, white hair plastered to his face. The twenty three year-old tossed and turned, like a boat floating out in the middle of a treacherous storm, trying desperately not to drown in the vast ocean that was his past.

He drifted in and out of consciousness slowly, wanting so hard to just dream. To lose himself, if only for a few hours. Stretching his mental arms to grasp for that glorious thing called slumber, bending over backwards to claim it, coming just within reach of it. He was close, oh so close…

And just as he was in reach, sunlight bombarded it's way through his window, shrieking relentlessly at him to get up.

Kakashi Hatake sighed, raising one lazy eye to glare balefully at the offending light. He knew that trying to go back to sleep now would be completely and utterly useless.

_Useless, useless, useless…_

He chuckled somberly as he made his way to the bathroom to take his morning shower.

The _irony_.

After showering, and trying futilely to relax his tired muscles in the hot spray, getting fully dressed and filling his stomach (breakfast in his line of work was always top priority), he was ready to leave and finally start work again, to be saved from his cursed hell.

But not before he went to check his hair in the mirror, of course. As he walked over there and saw himself coming closer, he realized something _very_ important, something that both startled him and brought down his already low spirits.

He had forgotten to put on his hitai-ate.

Any other day this wouldn't have bothered him in the slightest. He made it his job to check his hair regularly before leaving, in cases such as these. But last night and today were different.

Today instead of having one eye open he gazed out with both, which most of the time only gave him a slight headache. But this time it did not. That, or his mind was too focused on his sharingan to pay any attention to it. The red eye rarely bothered him, never really had - except, as mentioned before, on days such as these past few hours.

As he gazed into the mirror an angry and useless red eye glaring back at him, his heart squeezed with a hand wrought of guilt. His sharingan, which on the best of days felt like a well, yet undeserved gift, now seemed to be showcasing more along the lines of a stolen treasure.

_Illicit_.

He turned away from the mirror angrily. Kakashi knew he would call in sick today. He simply wasn't feeling well at all.

Scratch that. He felt just damn _nasty_.

The profound Copy-Ninja nearly went deaf on the phone, when, upon picking it up, had to suffer through the Hokage going on and on about having already giving him a day off, and him needing to get his, and quote: _"Lazy-one-eyed-Icha Icha-loving-perverted-ass back to work!"_, and shouting further obscenities in his ear.

She kept on rattling about how it was his job to work as a ninja, and that she was the Hokage, and he better damn well do anything she says, and that if he didn't bad things, _horrible things,_ were going to happen (something about not being able to pay for gambling debts?). He could have sworn on the Yondaime's grave that sake popped up in this equation at least twice.

She was still babbling on when Kakashi finally hung up the phone. He was just too tired to deal with her, even if the resulting consequences would be regrettable.

The ex-ANBU needed to lie down, his body needed the rest. He wasn't physically sick; it was his heart that was ill. Ill because of the red gaze that had trapped him this morning, his kekkei genkai in the mirror, glaring at him accusingly. Another flood of regretful memories had come boiling back to the surface, and he didn't want to deal with the result.

He languidly made his way back to his sparse bed, flopping down on it with all the graze of one of his stature.

And as he lied there on his bed, his soul in agony and having to deal with one horrible case of unwanted nostalgia, a single thought crossed his mind.

_Kami-sama, I was so damn _useless_!_

XXXXXXXXXXXX

_Dobe_.

That was the first thought Kakashi had of the raven-haired boy that was assigned to his genin team. He had noticed him in school sometimes, listening silently as many of the kids laughed at him while he attempted sorry excuses for jutsus, trying his best to look cool and strong, but always failing miserably. He watched as the other children picked on him and played little pranks. He realized with some disbelief that most of them were _his own_ clan members. Pushing him around, tripping him up, giving wedgies, and shoving his face into the restroom toilets. Punishing him because he wasn't making his family standards - _Uchiha_ standards. He was the black sheep, and he had to pay for that.

The black sheep in question didn't just sit back and let this happen though. Of course not.

The young Uchiha would lash back, fighting with everything he had in him. Punching, kicking, and screaming curses until he was blue in the face. But none of it mattered. It never worked.

Kakashi witnessed all this, saw it with his own dull eyes, but never said anything.

Why should he?

The boy was training to be a ninja and had to learn to fight his own battles. He couldn't always be rescued - _especially_ during a mission. He had to learn to be tough and to deal with his own problems.

It wasn't like Kakashi cared anyway. How could he when he had eradicated himself of all emotion? So he turned a blind eye to it all.

And yet….

Sometimes the Hatake heir felt a small urge to help the young boy. Wanting - for reasons he couldn't even justify - to race to his side and defend him. To kick his prosecutor's asses, and tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine, and to befriend the black sheep, to be befriended by him - at times he came pretty close to doing so.

He stopped every time though, quietly reminding himself that he didn't care and it wasn't his problem. To leave it alone. Years later he would realize it was his subconscious trying to keep the promise he made.

"_I will not be useless again!"_

But he very much had been.

_______________

When the teams were being picked, Kakashi wasn't the least bit surprised when he was placed in the same group with the Uchiha dobe and some other girl he hadn't paid much attention to (Rain something or another - he couldn't be bothered to care). In fact he was expecting such a turnout, him being the top of the class and the raven boy being dead last. He knew how team selection worked. Even still, the white haired boy let out small sigh of relief, he had been afraid they wouldn't be teamed up…

_He had been afraid they wouldn't team up?_

Where had this nonsense come from? He didn't _feel_ - let alone be afraid. Ninja's couldn't afford to be afraid!

Kakashi decided not to dwell on the matter for no good would come of it. However, as the other boy walked over, eyes on him, the future Jounin's heart started to do something it hadn't in nearly a decade.

It began to beat.

Sure, it _pumped_, but that was just for keeping him alive. To have blood flow through his body making sure all his other vital organs continued on, that was it. Pumped. Not beat like this. He never had an adrenaline rush because he couldn't get excited enough - or rather he never really got excited at _all_.

Yet this black sheep, this Uchiha, this - this _loser_ somehow had miraculously caused it to do so, a steady thrum beneath his chest. And they hadn't even spoken two syllables to each other in all the years they spent together at the academy!

Said boy sat down next to him, arms stubbornly crossed, with a look on his face that clearly stated he didn't want to be here. He completely ignored Hatake, making his dislike rather obvious.

This little revelation caused a tiny pang in his heart.

The raven's name had never really stood out to Kakashi before, just another Uchiha, but since discovering the affect this boy had on him, he was sure he'd never forget it.

_Obito_.

_______________

_Not a ninja!_

In the first few weeks of being an official genin, Kakashi was beginning to realize just how incompetent Obito really was.

There were certain rules that they, as ninjas, knew to follow. Ninjas were stealthy and took orders without complaint, they're always on time, put all effort into missions, even the simple ones, and they never, _never_, **ever** show emotion.

These traits were most certainly not Obito.

Said raven was loud and whiney, constantly late, never took much of anything seriously, and a _big_, **fat**, cry-baby.

Obito Uchiha was the perfect definition of: _**Not a Ninja**_.

If it had been up to Kakashi he would've sent him back to the academy to teach his own class:

"What_** Exactly Not **_to Do 101"

He had complete faith it would turn out to be a rousing success, what with the sensei having practically a PhD on the subject. But since their Jounin sensei Minato was much too lenient with him, Kakashi took it upon himself to scold the black sheep every chance he got, and to entertain the pleasure of having the raven spew curses at him in return. That was their relationship.

Kakashi showing off just how much better he was and pointing out all of Obito's mistakes, and Obito doing his best to prove Kakashi wrong. They fought in everything.

To Kakashi, at this time, the idea that he liked all this attention -that he liked _Obito_, and only mocked him ceaselessly just so he would get his notice, was purely idiotic.

Months later he would come to regret it.

_______________

It was his first day as an official Jounin. His first day that he was supposed to lead a team of his own into battle. He would've been excited if he hadn't been purged of all that was sensation.

Minato-sensei and Rin (who, for some reason, he didn't really like) had both given him presents to congratulate him on his new status. Of course the Uchiha had nothing to offer, even went so far as to point out that he never would, but the new Jounin was expecting as much.

Still.

Even though he would never admit it, it had hurt. Much more than he had thought it would. So Kakashi told him, in that expressionless voice of his, that it would have been useless in any case. And anyway, he'd just be extra baggage.

Kakashi then turned away and headed in their destination, ignoring the tiny pang in his heart. It was suppose to be _his_ day. His time to shine and show the world what the son of the infamous White Fang could do. To prove his worth and make a name for himself. Like his dad had. It was to be his best mission yet and he would not be useless.

He almost immediately wondered why even set foot out the house.

_______________

"_I believe that the 'White Fang' was a true hero!"_

Those few words were like field of mines in Kakashi's heart. Setting off every time he thought about it. Exploding into giant billows of smoke and fire, beginning to crack the wall he had built up around it, tearing it down from the inside.

What Obito had said to him, the accusation that defied every belief Kakashi had set up for himself, had struck a chord within the Jounin.

Kakashi stopped on the thick tree branch - one covered in different shades of green moss. It was impossible for him to continue the mission. Not without Obito who had aborted the assignment for Rin.

Rin. A girl who had always been there, but one he never really did see.

Couldn't. _Wouldn't_.

All that had been on his mind was Obito.

_Obito!_

Kakashi did a one-eighty and headed back.

_______________

_Familiar feet walked down forbidden halls in the Hatake compound, stopping right in front of an all too familiar door. A very memorable navy blue sleeve, with an orange ring on its cuff, reached into the pockets of equally familiar navy blue pants and pulled out a well-known hand barring an unfamiliar key. _

_The hand then placed the key inside the entry. Its wrist protector, with the Konoha leaf symbol etched it to it, slid onto it's back as it turned the key and cracked the door open. Letting some of the things that had been locked away free…_

__________

He must have gone on autopilot again because he could not recall the trip to find Obito, or even getting there. Yet what he did remember was being exceptionally thankful.

Glad even.

He was extremely glad. The fact that he was glad hadn't bothered him for the very reason he was glad. He was glad because if he had not gotten there when he did, Obito would be dead.

Kakashi slashed his blade across the Iwa nin's chest, causing him to fall - but not to die. The raven was expectedly surprised.

After giving a lame excuse to a flabbergasted orange goggled Uchiha - something about not leaving this up to a crybaby - the two fought the invisible Chunin. It was difficult and Kakashi nearly died, only managing to get away with his left eye being cut into blindness. Obito taking the enemy out not a millisecond after achieving his bloodline limit.

The Sharingan.

As they frantically headed towards the base that held their third team member, the Jounin obtained an adrenaline rush. He was excited - ecstatic. For surely with Obito's power and his own skills they would be able to save Rin without a problem.

Kami-sama had he be wrong.

__________________

"Are you alright? Rin…? Kakashi…?"

Kakashi moved his aching body to sit up. He didn't remember anything after the rock had hit him in his newly-blinded left eye and sent him deep into unconscious. As he turned his head to answer Obito's question he froze. He went stone cold **still**.

Instead of seeing the immense bolder that crushed his comrades right side he saw _that_ door. **The** door.

The door that lead to his father's room.

The door he has nightmares about almost every night.

The door he couldn't even remember opening to see deceased father.

The door he had long since boarded up and avoided in his own home.

The door he had locked away all his memories and stashed away all emotion.

That door flew wide open setting everything confined behind it loose. _Everything_.

It was then that he realized that Obito had open the door.

The door that led to his heart.

He was in love with him, Obito Uchiha, and now it was to late.

Kakashi Hatake cried.

He could barely remember much after Obito gave him his eyes. He made a promise that he didn't keep. He vaguely remembered fighting the other Iwa ninja. He woke up to find Minato-sensei beside him, who explained that he had come to help. Letting Kakashi know he had once again been _useless_.

He can only nick and pick at memories from the war. He had somehow obtained the title "Kakashi of the Sharingan". His earlier ambitions of making a name for himself coming back to bite him in the ass.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Kakashi chuckled darkly at the sardonic irony. _Should've been named "_Useless _Kakashi of the _Stolen_ Sharingun"_ he mused depressively.

And then he just let everything go.

If one were to look for the Sharingan wielder on his day off or on a sick day (which really, let's face it, no one did) you could often find him curled up in a ball on his bed, much like he was now, with a crazed look plaster on his face. He would seem somewhat empty. His eyes would be red from endless crying and despair, his hand clutching at the place where his heart had once occupied. But it had long since broken and shattered into minute pieces, the remains left for no one to pick up.

On days like these Kakashi futilely wondered why he had not already followed in his fathers footsteps.

_Thoroughly_.

* * *

**Tobi Here! Sorry guys that i didn't update sooner! I have been finished with this part for about a month now, it was just that my beta's went missing and in NEEEDED them. I finally caught up again with one of them. I hope you guys enjoy this final chapter to my two-shot! Something i finished YAAAY!!!! Please comment! I love hearing what you have to say---Flames or not! Just your honest opinion ^^!**


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